


Jack-o-palooza

by gaytothedawn



Category: Kingdom Hearts (Video Games)
Genre: Festival, Fluff, Halloween, Haunted House, Hayride, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-14
Updated: 2020-11-14
Packaged: 2021-03-10 00:07:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,229
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27565009
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gaytothedawn/pseuds/gaytothedawn
Summary: Sora and Riku find themselves in the middle of some kind of Halloween themed festival experiment planned by Jack.
Relationships: Riku & Sora (Kingdom Hearts), Riku/Sora (Kingdom Hearts)
Comments: 9
Kudos: 22





	Jack-o-palooza

**Author's Note:**

  * For [soriku_vibes](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=soriku_vibes).



> Hey, sorry it took so long, but I hope the length and content make up for that! Enjoy, and happy (late) Halloween!

A faint smell of pumpkins, hay, and spices wafted over to the entrance gate of Halloween Town where two boys stood, one dressed appropriately for the environment they found themselves in: black clothing, with white gloves ending in claws, tiny black wings, fangs, and a cute little pumpkin mask adorning his face, whereas the other simply wore jeans and a vest.

“Are you sure I’m invited too, Sora?” The latter boy questioned the former.

“Why wouldn't you be Riku?” Sora smiled at Riku, “Merlin said that Jack invited me plus one ‘special guest’, you’re my special guest!” He pointed a spiked fingertip Riku’s way, tapping him lightly on his chest.

Riku felt a small warmth in his chest begin to grow slightly, “Your special guest…” he whispered under his breath.

“I’m so glad you could make it!” The pair had not noticed the skeleton who had attempted, at least three separate times at this point, to jump out and voicelessly spook them. This unexpected intrusion however had been enough to elicit a reaction out of the pair, Riku wordlessly taken aback, as Sora hid behind Riku almost instinctively.

“Jack!” Sora peeked out over Riku’s shoulder, “How long have you been there?”

“Oh you know somewhere around 10 to 30 minutes, no big deal!” Jack waved his hand dismissively. 

“Heh, Sorry ‘bout that,” Sora looked down slightly in embarrassment, “Riku and I were just discussing the fact that he was invited too.” Sora jumped slightly, “OH! That’s right, you two haven’t met, Jack this is Riku, and Riku this is Jack, he’s the um...what was it again?”

“Pumpkin King!” He held his boney hand out to the silver-haired boy, “Pleasure to make your acquaintance Riku!”

Riku shook the hand, a little taken aback, he had never seen a walking, talking, skeleton before, but then again he had seen many strange things in his time so this probably shouldn’t be too unusual to him. On that note, he realized that he hadn’t really seen Halloween Town at all, at least not really, since the only encounter he had had was when he traversed Castle Oblivion. He now realized how truly underdressed he was for this situation.

“Hey Riiiiiku!” Sora had been trying to get the boy’s attention for a good while now.

Startled, Riku breaks out of his thoughts, “Yes, Sora?” Riku noticed then that he had just been awkwardly standing in front of Jack, lost in thoughts, post handshake. “Oh, sorry about that.”

“It’s not a problem at all, but you didn’t answer my question, wouldn’t you like to be better dressed for the occasion? I mean, I don’t know what holiday town you might come from but that isn’t Halloween town clothes, and you’d be better prepared for this event if they were.” Jack seemed really excited for whatever it was he had in store.

“And what is that event exactly Jack?” Sora butted in before Riku could answer, and looked around trying to get a peek through the gate, but a large curtain had been installed.

“Oh it’s just the most wonderful idea for Halloween!” Jack spun around, placing himself next to the curtain, “You see, I’d been going about looking at Christmas and Christmas town all wrong-”

“Jack please tell me you aren’t messing with Christmas again!” Sora looked slightly exasperated.

“No no no! It’s nothing like that this time, I swear!” Jack got rather animated, “You see I’ve been thinking, Christmas is about many emotions right? Well what do you think when you think of Halloween? Fear. And I feel like Halloween deserves to have some kind of depth too. After all, what is it you say when you go around to different houses on Halloween night?”

“Trick or treat?” Riku tilted his head.

“Precisely my dear Riku!” Jack begin to tug on the curtain, and it slowly slid open, “And so, I feel it is time we focused a little more on the ‘or treat’ part of that equation, may I present to you,” the curtain inched the rest of the way open, “Jack-o-palooza!”

“Jack-o-pa-whatza?” Sora seemed perplexed by this.

“The name is a work in progress,” The skeleton pointed inside, “the point is I wanted Sora and a special guest to experience both chills and thrills today at this festival dedicated to Halloween!” Jack allowed Riku through but stopped Sora before going through the gates, “You know Sora when I said special guest, I meant like….like Sally would be for me, y’know?”

Sora turned slightly red, “Riku…..is special to me.”

Jack nodded knowingly, “Oooooh, gotcha, gotcha, carry on then! Do send him back here so I can get him into something a little more festive though, will you?”

Sora nodded, and went to get Riku, “Thanks Jack!”

Riku walked through the gate for the second time after a good 30 minutes, now wearing a completely different outfit. He now wore a tattered shirt with holes all over it, revealing green paint on his skin, fake stitches adorned his face, and his jeans were now stained with a light layer of dirt and holes as well. “Well...what do you think?”

Sora gave him a big thumbs up, “Wow Riku! You really fit in here now! You gotta come look at this pamphlet!” Sora motioned down to a table that had pamphlets with little maps and an activity list on it.

Riku picked up the pamphlet and began reading through it, apple bobbing, a haunted house exploration, among many other activities, at the very bottom it stated a romantic hayride would be the final event of the evening. “Wait...romantic?” Riku said it so quietly Sora didn’t hear, but he had now grown a little worried that Sora might be uncomfortable with that last event.

Almost answering his thoughts, Sora piped up, “It all sounds like fun together right?”

He nodded, his apprehension fading, “Yeah, this all does sound like fun, together,” he would have been very visibly red were it not for the green makeup Jack had so generously smudged all over his face not 10 minutes ago.

Sora scanned through the list of activities again, “I want to try the haunted house first Riku! I bet it won’t be scary!”

Riku checked the map on his pamphlet, and then realized he was completely unfamiliar with the layout of Halloween Town, which made sense it’s not like what he saw in Castle Oblivion had been true, “hmm, so if we head to….” he looked up from the map and pointed, “That building, the entrance to the haunted house should be that building.”

The pair walked there, Riku leading the way, where they were greeted by Jack once again, who had presumably, while they were discussing where to go, ran over to the little booth outside the haunted house, “Welcome!”

“We’re ready to be scared Jack!” Sora beamed, jumping up slightly in excitement.

“Then scared you shall be!” Jack motioned to the door and it slowly slid open, fog falling forth from the door.

The entrance was done up in fairly convincing cobwebs, spiders, a smoke machine, and lighting so low the darkness threatened to swallow the two boys entering its maw. Sora instinctively grabbed onto Riku’s hand; he then went to retract it, but Riku just gave him a firm reassuring squeeze as they penetrated the surrounding darkness together.

As the pair further entrenched themselves in the darkness, they felt the silence envelop them as their vision shortened to the point of near nonexistence, alone with only the sounds of their breathing, and the faint noise of chains rattling. Sora tightened his grip on Riku’s hand, whose palm was a little sweaty.

“GWAH!” Suddenly the pair found their vision illuminated by a bright light from the floor, shining up at a figure in a tattered robe, jumping out to surprise them.

Sora screamed, “Riku!” Hiding his face in Riku’s back, Riku took an almost instinctive protective posture, holding his free arm out as if to summon his keyblade, before stopping, remembering that Jack likely wouldn’t appreciate his creations being attacked.

“It’s ok Sora, it’s just some kind of machine.” Riku reassured the boy shaking behind him, giving another reassuring squeeze to his hand, “Let’s continue.”

The pair resumed walking as before, but now Sora was planted more firmly behind Riku, peeking out from behind his shoulder. Sora, this close to Riku, noticed the smell of his friends shampoo, it had a nice lavender scent, which he thought fit Riku, and this thought comforted and distracted him from the darkness, and occasional spooks that jumped out as they continued down this long twisting hallway that just seemed to continue forever in all directions.

They faced many more scares, though they were essentially all the same, something would jump out and make a noise, and without fail, everytime Sora would hide behind Riku, Sora was clearly having a very frightening and unpleasant time, but Riku found that Sora clinged to him more and more and that this made him feel warm in his face and his heart.

The final “gauntlet”, as it was labeled, of the haunted house, was a long stretch of hallway with the light just faintly being visible at the very end, and every few steps Jack, a machine, or one of the town’s residents would hope out and try to give the pair a good scare, Riku was beginning to think this was genuinely a terrible attempt at scaring, but the shaking boy clinging to him would beg to differ. Riku pushed them through it all. They found themselves back at the entrance, somehow, which was the part that Riku found actually the most frightening. They had never turned enough to come back this way, and the mystery of how the exit was the same entrance they came through would likely be on his mind the rest of the night.

“So what do I win?” Riku looked back over his shoulder to Sora.

“Win?” Sora peered up at him, finally noticing they had left the haunted house behind.

“Yeah, you said you bet it wouldn’t be scary, and yet here you are terrified.”

“I-I was not!” Sora blushed slightly, avoiding Riku’s gaze.

“I think I know what a good prize would be,” Riku scanned the pamphlet, “how about we go ahead and try that hayride?”

“Isn’t that supposed to be the last event though?”

Jack popped up behind Sora, which sent him back into a scream, “I can reschedule things and arrange for that to be the next stop!”

Sora looked down at his feet, his face visibly red, “If you want to Riku, then I do too....”

Riku re-grabbed Sora’s hand, “Let’s go then.”

The hayride was set to start from the door to Christmas town, and lead back into Halloween Town, Sora and Riku got onto what appeared to be a modified version of Santa’s sleigh, with hay bale seats, and pulled by two skeletal horses. The ride started, and the pair watched the scenery of the woods pass them by, illuminated by candles that Jack has probably spent an eternity hanging, light violin music appeared to follow them, but neither boy could discern from where the music was coming. 

“Riku…” Sora fidgeted with his hands, looking down.

Riku, feeling emboldened by the events of the night thus far, and looking forward to the events to come, grabbed Sora’s chin softly and tilted his head up, gazing into his eyes, “Yes, Sora?”

This had the desired effect as Sora blushed incredibly brightly, “Well you see, I uh….”

“You uh…?” Riku’s tone of voice rising slightly, “If you won’t say it I will, this is a date isn’t it?”

“Yes…” Sora averted his eyes from Riku.

“I was hoping that’s what you’d say.” Riku stroked Sora’s cheek delicately with his thumb, wrapping his arms around Sora’s shoulders, he pulled him into a tight embrace.

Sora pulled away slightly blushing, “Riku can I…”

“Can you?” Riku smiled softly, his eyes twinkling in the mixed candle and moonlight.

“Can we..”

Sora was cut off as Riku pecked Sora’s lips, the two softly kissed each other, “was that what you wanted?” Riku whispered.  
“Yeah…” The two boy’s sat there, hearts a-flutter. “I love you Riku.”

“I love you too Sora, have for a long time.” Riku was startled by both his own and Sora’s admission.

The two sat in now shocked, but not unhappy, silence, before Sora attempted to break it, “So I guess that explains a lot huh?”

“Yeah, I suppose it does.” Riku felt a large pang of embarrassment, and joy, embarrassment for how he had acted out of jealousy of others, like how he was jealous of Sora making new friends, and joy because he now knew his feelings were mutual.

They found themselves now riding around the hill, where the cart stopped for a second, framing them both under the moonlight, as the music swelled.

“I think this is our cue…” Riku leaned into Sora, grabbing and pulling him close, before locking their lips together, as they kissed, longer this time, under the moonlight.

They kissed for what seemed like an eternity, time stopped, sparks flew, and the boys wouldn’t let go of each other's embrace. They rode back into Halloween town blushing, with the biggest grins across their faces, excited for the rest of their date.


End file.
